Read 20 books in 2009

These young adult books were gripping stories that kept me engaged. I wanted to keep reading.

I really liked What Happened to Cass McBride and recommend the book. While it is a “teen” book, set with high school students and their angst, it sheds light on abuse – verbal and neglect – and how it can affect children. Obviously, it’s an extreme case, but it’s still thought provoking, nonetheless.

Dead Girls Don’t Write Letters was a bit more strange, but it was entertaining. Questions needed to be answered, so I kept reading! It’s a short novel, something quick to read while waiting in the doc’s office or on a lunch break. :)

This was my first time reading Ward’s novels and I read them quickly, one right after another. While it took a few pages to get involved with the characters, I definitely started to feel their pain and was interested in finding out what happens next.

I recommend Ward’s novel and am about to start on another one: Forgive Me.

From Amazon.com

From Publishers Weekly
Bright, precocious but socially awkward Lydia Pasternak reports on the aftermath of her older brothers disappearance in Gershows accomplished debut. Danny was everything Lydia wasn’t: at ease with their parents, popular in school, physically imposing, beloved by the opposite sex. Danny went from being Lydia’s playmate in their youth to her tormentor in high school, so his disappearance leaves Lydia with some very mixed feelings, one of which is relief. As time goes on and the weekend search parties prove more and more fruitless, Lydia struggles with the fact that her geeky best friend, David, has feelings for her; she also obsesses over the private investigator hired by the family and allows herself to be sucked into the social world Danny once dominated. Lydias perspective gives this Lovely Bones–esque story line an unflinching quality as she details the emotional damage that reverberates even through her 10-year high school reunion. Gershows psychologically acute grasp of the mundane, ugly details that accompany tragedy, combined with an understanding of the tragicomedy of high school, make for a stark and merciless narrative, leavened by Lydia’s wry insights. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Amazon.com

Review
This heart-wrenching autobiographical account…has the power of a Dickens novel. —Booklist

Product Description
One rainy day in Brooklyn, Jennings Michael Burch’s mother, too sick to care for him, left him at an orphanage, saying only, “I’ll be right back.” She never returned. Shuttled through a series of bleak foster homes and institutions, he never remained in any of them long enough to make a friend. Instead, Jennings clung to a tattered stuffed animal, his sole source of warmth in a frightening world. This is the poignant story of his lost childhood. But it is also the triumphant tale of a little boy who finally gained the courage to reach out for love-and found it waiting for him.

Good read.

From Booklist
Holly Frick is smart and sassy, loyal and dedicated. All the qualities a woman could want in a girlfriend, but not the ones that seem to resonate with men, if her roster of failed relationships is any indicator. There’s her ex-husband, Alex, with whom she’s still in love; her ex-boyfriend, Spence, a womanizing creep whom Holly scathingly immortalized in her first novel; and Lucas, a 22-year-old boy-toy who, for all his playful sexuality, ultimately makes Holly feel like a cradle-robbing matron. But then she meets Jack, an opinionated Buddhist who is having an affair with her married best friend; and even though Holly takes an immediate dislike to him, she has to admit there’s something undeniable lurking just beneath the surface. Dunn displays a rapier wit; a perfectly nuanced gift for savvy, sophisticated dialogue; and an endearing moral compass, which she uses to great advantage as she blithely navigates the fraught and fatuous world of trendy New York’s treacherous dating scene. —Carol Haggas

Easy to read story about a freshman girl’s experience in college in the 1980s. Away from home for the first time, she has trouble balancing her studies and parties…

It was okay. There were some exciting parts of the book that kept me reading, but there were times I wouldn’t read the book for days. :( I liked Jack McGuane’s character, but to be honest, I’m not sure I’ll remember this book a year from now. And it took me a pretty long time to read it, for me anyhow.

Amazon’s Product Description

New York Times bestselling author C.J. Box’s novels have been called “red hot,”* “edge-of-your-seat read[s],”† and “unforgettable, powerful.”‡ Now he delivers a novel that will steal your sleep as much as it will wrench your heart. It’s a novel about something that could be anyone’s worst nightmare. . . .

Jack and Melissa McGuane have spent years trying to have a baby. Finally their dream has come true with the adoption of their daughter, Angelina. But nine months after bringing her home, they receive a devastating phone call from the adoption agency: Angelina’s birth father, a teenager, never signed away his parental rights, and he wants her back. Worse, his father, a powerful Denver judge, wants him to own up to this responsibility and will use every advantage his position of power affords him to make sure it happens. When Jack and Melissa attempt to handle the situation rationally by meeting face-to-face with the father and son, it is immediately apparent that there’s something sinister about both of them and that love for Angelina is not the motivation for their actions.

As Angelina’s safety hangs in the balance, Jack and Melissa will stop at nothing to protect their child. A horrifying game of intimidation and double crosses begins that quickly becomes a death spiral where absolutely no one is safe.

How far would you go to save someone you love?

C.J. Box has once again written a bone-chilling thriller that will keep you guessing until the very last page.

I was looking forward to reading this book about a recently divorced 38 years old woman who temporarily moves back home to her parents while she regroups, attends her 20 year high school reunion, and meets up w/old friends. Being that the character in the novel is my age – class of 1988 – I thought it would be a fun trip down memory lane. Parts of the story did that, but I found the book a little slow. It took me over 2 weeks to read it, which is not necessarily a good thing. I can usually finish a book of this length in 2-3 days…but I found myself not all that engaged. :(

From the libary…
276 pages

Summary
After twenty years away from home, Lillian Curtis, a thirty-something New York television producer, is confronted by her past when she moves back in with her parents and is forced to come to terms with the people she supposedly had left behind.

Easy to read, engaging young adult novel.

Review
After years working to achieve popularity, Jenna tries not to think about elementary school: the lisp, the tears, the fat. When her childhood soul mate Cameron Quick miraculously reappears, Jenna’s carefully cultivated persona begins to unravel. Tension builds as readers wonder how long Jenna can keep up appearances, what made Cameron vanish so many years ago and whether the two will consummate their love. Jenna and Cameron’s preternatural bond remains at the core of this original story. Readers will find their fascinating connection at once believable and unfathomable. Intermittent flashbacks cast a murky, nightmarish hue and culminate to reveal a horrific moment that united Jenna and Cameron forever. This haunting and ultimately hopeful novel asserts what many teens feel acutely: that childhood experiences often leave indelible marks. A convincing, first-person narrative voice makes the painful ramifications of exclusion palpable. The costs of popularity, eating disorders and abuse also find resonance. Zarr transfixes teen readers with enticing explorations of identity and enduring love. (Fiction. YA) (Kirkus Reviews)

Praise for STORY OF A GIRL: ‘This is a thoughtful, well-executed debut from an author who understands how to write for teens’ – Booklist ‘Zarr convincingly creates a teen trapped by small-minded people in a small town’ – Publishers Weekly

From Amazon.com

Product Description

Eddy knows how to play the game.

He is, after all, the writer, director, and cameraman—the mastermind, really—behind the hit online TV show Riot Grrl 16. When it wins a contest to be aired on MTV (and it obviously will—have you seen the competition?), he’ll be famous.

Then there’s the game of love. Eddy knows all the tricks, and his favorite girls are the ones with the fishnets and cherry lipstick and legs up to there. The ones who know he doesn’t make any promises. The ones who are cool with it.

But as graduation looms, everything and everyone starts deviating from Eddy’s master script. Never in a million years did he expect to be facing off again with the unapproachable, perfect Lucinda Dulko. For once in his life, he’s not in control—and to be with Lucinda, he’s willing to get swept up in the game. But what happens to a player when the rules suddenly change?

Can Eddy find a way to win it all?

Or will he get played?